THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler, Margot Robbie Martin

Director: Martin Scorsese

179 mins

Scorsese goes back to the source of some of his greatest successes in "The Wolf of Wall Street". As in his landmark masterpiece "Goodfellas", Scorsese has his lead character serving as narrator while he is also on-screen acting. There are moments where Leonardo DiCaprio practically channels Liotta in "Goodfellas", and the comparisons don't end there. "Goodfellas" is based on the ramifications of a real-life heist by the mob. "The Wolf of Wall Street" is based on the ramifications of a real-life business scam on Wall Street. The distinctions in terms of evil between the two stories are somewhat blurred, which is the point.

Jordan R. Belfort was a stockbroker who was convicted of crimes related to stock market manipulation. His infamy came from living life to absurd excess, where it was common for him and his partners to have hookers in the office while everyone was doing drugs. Through various scams, he became a very rich man, but it all fell apart and he ended up spending 22 months in prison. "The Wolf of Wall Street" relates his rise and inevitable fall and is based on Belfort's book of the same name.

At its beginning, Jordan is seen as a wide-eyed young man attempting to make a million on Wall Street. On his first day on the job, one of the big shots at the company (Matthew McConaughey) takes him out to lunch, pulling out cocaine and snorting right at the table. He then instructs Jordan that in order to succeed in this arena, one must masturbate at least twice a day. Clearly, this is not going to be a tale of subtlety. Soon afterwards, the market crashes and Jordan is looking for a job. Before long, Jordan has opened a penny stock boiler room, a few more moments pass and Jordan is running an enormously successful business based on ripping people off. From there, excess is the keyword – no drug goes unexplored, no good-looking woman goes untouched and party time is the default setting. When everything finally crashes however, Jordan finds himself with the choice of accepting his fate with the Feds or turning on his associates, just like Liotta's character in "Goodfellas". The unravelling of everything ensues.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is enormously enjoyable, despite clocking in at three full hours and allegedly Scorsese edited it down from four (fingers crossed for the Director's un-Cut on blu-ray).

Some will, predictably, be offended by the language, as it is rumoured to have more curses than issued by myself at a Partick Thistle match. If that is of no concern to you and you enjoy debauchery of any and every kind, this wolf will leave you howling with delight. No rock is left unturned in pursuit of the ugly truth that, with apologies to Gordon Gekko, greed is fun - the real American hustle being that of pursuing the almighty dollar.

The 1990s brokerage firm at the heart of the fact-based film was made in the image of its founder, Jordan Belfort, who was convicted of fraud and money laundering. Today he is - somewhat predictably - a motivational speaker. The film is made in the image of the amoral world created by Belfort and his unethical band of men, who stole from the rich and poor alike and gave to themselves. It is armpit deep in licentiousness, drugs and corruption.

Belfort is played to perfection by Leonardo DiCaprio, a character whose empire was built on illegal deals so complicated that the actor, speaking directly to the camera, shrugs off their particulars with a smirk. He is as proud of what this life bought him — lingerie model wife, helicopters he pilots while drunk, various Swiss bank accounts and all the drugs in the world — as he is of the crooked deals it took to get them.

He revels in a symphony of excess one imagines reserved for rappers, rockers, oligarchs and movie stars, and which Scorsese, working from a script by "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Sopranos" writer Terence Winter, portrays without restraint. DiCaprio captures this cynical and unsympathetic character effortlessly, and Jonah Hill provides crude comic relief as his nerdy partner in crime. But the highlight is a scene between DiCaprio and folksy FBI agent Kyle Chandler. It bristles with conflict, and the dialogue has layers of meaning that reveal where everyone stands without them saying so directly.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a physical-comedy sequence that seems destined to live on in the annals of slapstick. Belfort and Donnie have a delayed reaction to some extra-strength Quaaludes, which leads to the protagonist’s epic slow-motion journey from a country-club lobby to the driver’s seat of his car and a subsequent battle for control of a telephone. Like everything in The Wolf of Wall Street, it’s all too much – but for me, I couldn’t get enough of it.

OUT OF THE FURNACE

Cast: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Tom Bower

Director: Scott Cooper

116 mins

Former actor Scott Cooper made his directorial debut with “Crazy Heart” which won a long-deserved Oscar for actor Jeff Bridges. Cooper follows that film with this, his second directorial effort, “Out of the Furnace”. It's another exercise in superb acting, even if it's sadly lacking in the storytelling department.

In Braddock, Pennsylvania, two brothers struggle to make ends meet. Russell Baze (Christian Bale) works at the steel mill, even though his father lies dying after a lifelong career in the same place. Russell's brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) is an Army veteran who served in the Iraq conflict and now fights in underground bare-knuckle boxing matches for money. After Russell gets arrested and imprisoned for drunk driving, and loses his loving girlfriend (Zoe Saldana), Rodney becomes involved with a dangerous gambler and drug dealer, Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson). Harlan lives in the Appalachian Mountains where normal laws do not apply, and so Russell finds he must venture into unknown territory to find justice for his family.

Out of the Furnace is sometimes confusing, glossing over many simple details. For example, it's not clear at first why Russell goes to jail, and it's just as vague as to how long he's in there. Cooper succeeds in establishing a deliberate, gritty, grubby, moody pace, enmeshed in a small-town atmosphere. Unfortunately, this pace does not serve the simplistic revenge story too well, as it drags on interminably and is far too grim - the climactic chase actually appears to be unfolding in slow motion.

However, the tone does help to establish the strong characters. Woody Harrelson in particular makes a memorable backwoods villain, vile, vicious and unpredictable. It can be said that the performances of the entire cast easily ranks amongst their best work, it’s just a shame about the mumbling script, the weak narrative and predictable denoument.